White-collar workers join Occupy protests

White-collar workers, labor unions and spiritual leaders increasingly support the U.S. Occupy movement originally populated by twentysomethings, protesters say."I decided they needed one person in a necktie and sport coat," Darrel Egemo, 75, a former money manager, told The New York Times at an Occupy Denver rally at the state Capitol.He waved a sign to motorists reading, "Integrity sold short by greed."Older protesters are seen more in at least 25 other cities too, witnesses and demonstrators said.In Los Angeles, the encampment at City Hall and other protests, as recently as last week dominated by young people, now include homeless people, including some who lost their homes in the economic crisis, demonstrators said.In New York, a branch of the nation's largest private-sector union -- the Service Employees International Union, representing more than 2 million workers in more than 100 occupations -- said it would join more than a dozen other union locals in support of Occupy Wall Street, which has been protesting since Sept. 17.SEIU Local 32BJ -- representing more than 120,000 office cleaners, security officers, doormen, bus drivers, school cleaners and food-service workers -- said it would join Financial District marchers Wednesday in a call for good jobs.Workers at art auctioneer Sotheby's, locked out for more than two months, and Verizon Communications Inc. workers, campaigning for a new contract, were also expected to join the march, organizers said.Other unions supporting the protesters include the United Federation of Teachers, the AFL-CIO and the Communications Workers of America. The union representing New York City transit workers was the first major union to come out in support of Occupy Wall Street protesters two weeks ago.The Occupy protesters say they are demonstrating against the richest 1 percent of the population, who hold 35.6 percent of the country's wealth, and what the protesters say is Wall Street greed that contributed to the global economic crisis.Todd Gitlin, a Columbia University expert in social movements who accompanied a New York march, told the Los Angeles Times two placards appeared more than any other -- "We are the 99%" and "The banks got bailed out, we got sold out."Protesters also decry a "spiritual poverty in this country ... how far we've come from the basic principles of what we are supposed to be doing in this country," the Rev. Michael Ellick of New York's Judson Memorial Church, affiliated with American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ, told local cable-news channel NY1.He is one of many religious and spiritual groups supporting the activists, organizers said.Jews in more than a dozen cities plan to occupy sukkahs, or temporary booths or tabernacles made of tree branches or bamboo shoots, during the weeklong Jewish festival of Sukkot starting Wednesday.The sukkah is intended as a reminiscence of the fragile dwellings the Bible says the ancient Israelites lived in during their 40 years of travel in the desert after the Exodus from slavery in Egypt.Imam Ayyub Abdul Baki of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York called on Muslims and Muslim charities Tuesday to show solidarity with the activists."We will be feeding protestors and the hungry with the collaborative efforts of invited Muslim charities," he said.In many Occupy cities, there are "protest chaplains" who identify themselves with blue ribbons or white cloaks and are often found in "Inter/No/Faith" tents.An alliance of spiritually sensitive activist groups, including We the World, the Coalition for OneVoice and Interspiritual Dialogue in Action, created Occupy Spirituality and Values "to instill values and spiritual insights into the Occupy Movement," the alliance said.